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A waitress had vanished during a night shift in Chihuahua, and it had remained an unsettling mystery for nearly a year. One evening, the pieces began to resurface in the most unexpected way. Miguel Torres Sandoval was finishing up his routine cleaning of the grills at El Fogón del Norte, a modest but busy restaurant in the heart of the city, when something unusual caught his eye—a floor tile near the kitchen counter that didn’t sit quite right.
It was March 2012, and Miguel had been working there only two months. Every night, he maneuvered the cleaning cart around the kitchen, and the tile shifted slightly under its wheels. “Another repair,” he muttered to himself, crouching to inspect it closer. When he lifted it completely, he discovered a rectangular cavity cut into the concrete. Inside lay a small, tightly wrapped metal box, concealed from plain sight.
Miguel glanced toward the kitchen exit. The restaurant had long since closed; he was the only one staying for nightly cleaning duties. His heart beat a little faster as he carefully picked up the box and unwrapped it. Inside, he found an assortment of objects: a restaurant ID card, a silver ring engraved with initials, several Polaroid photographs, and a small, leather-bound journal. The ID card bore the name Rosa Delgado Morales, a waitress whose hire date was January 15, 2011.
Miguel recognized the style of the card. These were the old ID cards used before the restaurant had upgraded to the computerized system. With trembling fingers, he opened the journal. On the cover, neatly written in a woman’s handwriting, was a message dated August 15, 2011:
“If anything happens to me, find Aurelio. He knows everything about this dirty business.”
The photographs inside showed familiar spaces, but from angles Miguel had never noticed. One captured the manager’s office with papers scattered across a desk. Another showed a middle-aged man counting stacks of bills beside cardboard boxes. A third depicted the restaurant’s rear parking lot at night, several cars parked, and unidentified figures milling about.
As Miguel studied the contents, memories began to surface. He had heard whispers from other employees about a young waitress who had disappeared the previous year. They referred to her casually as Rosa, but whenever he asked for details, the conversations quickly shifted. He carefully placed the items back into the box, wrapped it again, and tucked it into his bag.
His shift ended at midnight, leaving him hours before the restaurant opened again at 7 a.m. As he walked to the bus stop, Miguel tried to piece together what he knew about Rosa Delgado. Older employees had spoken of her as a dedicated worker, someone who supported her family after the death of her parents. Her sudden disappearance had occurred during a night shift, but no further information had ever been shared.
At his apartment, Miguel searched online for any news about missing persons in Chihuahua during 2011. A brief article from a local newspaper dated August 20, 2011, confirmed what he feared:
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